It is known that the addition of a low concentration solution of various polyelectrolytes to sewage or wastewater effluent, for example, will promote floc formation of unwanted particulate matter suspended therein. Such solutions are also useful in the treatment of potable waters, as an aid in various filtration processes, and the like. The finely divided polyelectrolyte material is wetted and mixed and the resultant mixture emptied into an aging and/or storage tank by means of an eductor.
Many of the polyelectrolyte family of materials however, produce sticky lumps and "fish-eyes" when improperly wetted and/or mixed, which lumps and fish-eyes accumulate in the throat of the eductor to periodically plug or clog it, thus causing the wetting and mixing vessel to overflow. Removing and cleaning the sticky build-up of lumpy material from the eductor throat, often quite inaccessible, is a difficult, messy and time-consuming task.
The present invention eliminates the plugging and clogging of all internal surfaces of piping leading to and including the eductor throat by providing an orificed disc which causes the polyelectrolyte-water mixture, upon leaving the wetting and mixing vessel, to be impacted by multiple jets of high-velocity water to thereby provide a lump-free solution prior to passage of the lump-free solution through the eductor throat.